If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You will be required to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

know what you mean
a certain person i know at work has got his head so far up his butt hes making colossal mistakes
some have caused severe injury and massive property damage
why he hasn't been fired yet leaves me to believe that a lot of his f-ups are being hidden
hes a highly educated individual but his arrogance makes him think he's god
and he's highly abusive to subs including highly trained military vets

shooting the s*** is a lot more fun when you use hollow points (much more splatter)

I went to work at Ingersoll-Rand in 1973. When I started my career in 1966 as a technical illustrator, I did a lot of work for IBM and several other companies, but I-R was my favorite "client". So, after the 1972 "Agnes" flood, the plant in Painted Post did some serious rebuilding and hiring. But in 1982, after 9 years, my particular Division relocated to North Carolina and I and quite a number of others got dumped.

So there I was in this stupid little town, with the only other employer being Corning Glass. Corning wouldn't even look at you unless you had at least a Bachelors Degree. So my first week off, I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting for my wife who is buying groceries and the local radio station is giving it's job listings: Local Shoe store looking for a salesman...BACHELORS DEGREE REQUIRED!!! I was just about in tears, here I was in my late 30's, rather talented in my field, and had been working since I was 14, AND I wasn't even qualiified to put shoes on some lady's stinking fat feet!!!

So with a wife, a teenager, and a mortgage, and no one that would even take my resume' I simply said screw em'. I took about $2K out of our savings and went to New York City, and bought a equipment and set up shop in my garage.. and became a Corporation!

Funny, that you can't get someone to talk to you if you don't have the right degree... but nobody asks that question when you knock on their door a "company".

Comment

and it really was not that long ago companies would let you prove to them your abilities,
my uncle, a farmer, and for a part time job, helped dig pole holes and string wire, for the telephone coop,
but times were hard and they loaded up the truck and moved to California, (late 1950's)
He got in a new venture called aero space, and by the time the Apollo missions came around, he was the head electrical engineer working on the Saturn V second stage rocket booster, he had worked on all maned missions, and many non maned missions, on the space shuttle he was the person in charge of the shuttles clock that controlled all the sub systems, and keep the whole thing in sequence, not to bad for a man who never had a collage education or a degree, but was Dirt farmer, and previous electrical experience was the crank telephone, changing over from barbed wire fence to poles,

now days it all about paper work, and if one has their "Official" requirements, not if they can do the job,

Push sticks/blocks Save Fingers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
attributed to Samuel Johnson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PUBLIC NOTICE: Due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil...plus the current state of the economy............the light at the end of the tunnel, has been turned off.

Comment

I would put more faith into their financial skills from working two years as a cashier. I don't want to bad mouth folks who seek higher education, we need highly educated folks, hard working folks with little education and everything in between. I was disappointed years ago when we had several college grads come into the line gang because they couldn't get better paying jobs, or jobs in their field. I was not upset because of their college degree but rather their disrespect for the work, and lack of effort! I understand the corporate mentality to hire folks with college degrees, I guess the time has passed when they can see the person beyond the paper. I doubt at minimum wage or slightly higher those college loans will ever get paid, but that's a different conversation.

Comment

and it really was not that long ago companies would let you prove to them your abilities,
my uncle, a farmer, and for a part time job, helped dig pole holes and string wire, for the telephone coop,
but times were hard and they loaded up the truck and moved to California, (late 1950's)
He got in a new venture called aero space, and by the time the Apollo missions came around, he was the head electrical engineer working on the Saturn V second stage rocket booster, he had worked on all maned missions, and many non maned missions, on the space shuttle he was the person in charge of the shuttles clock that controlled all the sub systems, and keep the whole thing in sequence, not to bad for a man who never had a collage education or a degree, but was Dirt farmer, and previous electrical experience was the crank telephone, changing over from barbed wire fence to poles,

now days it all about paper work, and if one has their "Official" requirements, not if they can do the job,

i know what you mean!
I wanted to go for a degree a couple of years ago but the required non topic courses they wanted me to take(politics, performing arts, psychology) are all courses i hate
and putting me in those classes would have been courting a natural disaster
I would have driven the psych prof. insane with mind games and the politics classes would have ended in open warfare, Performing arts i have no use for at all.
at my age now im not going to waste 2 to 4 years of my life on that useless trash

shooting the s*** is a lot more fun when you use hollow points (much more splatter)

coffee hell gimme booze!!!

Comment

I understand that! After almost three years out on my own, "the Rand" offered me another job. I had gotten into micro-computers in 1979, and never could educate my I-R boss as to their value. Out on my own, I did all my writing on one. I landed a contract at Corning (those people who wouldn't even allow a resume' without at least a BA) to write documentation of thier fiber-optic process (optical wave guides, to them), and I was the only writer they had that was using a computer. It really set them back when I turned in my first manuscript and they instructed me to take it to the documentation center for typing and distribution. My response was that "We don't have to do that, how many copies do you want, it's already digital, who handles to archive?" They just about freaked!

(Even landing that contract was funny, HA HA funny for me! I went for an interview, being referred by one of the engineers that I had done a lot of freelance work for as "a company". But, I would have to be placed by an "agency" they worked with. So, I took in resume' and my portfolio of illustration and writing work and several examples of manuals from I-R, IBM, U.S. Textile, GAF, etc. Well, I went to four separate engineering managers, spending most of the my morning... then I went to the senior Engineering VP... who told me that all the reports thus far were quite "admirable"... "but, where's your education sheet and what college do you have your degree from?" When I told him I didn't have a degree, he about sh!t, accusing me of wasting his time...."this JOB requires NO LESS than a Bachelors in Science". So, I wasn't at all happy, told him so and pointed out my "admirable" reviews thus far and I left. Good opportunity lost, as it paid $18 an hour [Hey, it was 1984). As the hours passed, I got angrier and angrier... and the next day, the agency that had tried to place me called and said the other managers had "raised hell" because they had been looking for some time, AND they loved that I could also illustrate the document, which none of the other writers could. While delighted, at that point I was "pi$$ed" at being embarrassed by the seniour guy... I don't take too well being told that I've "wasted" somebody's time.

So, I asked at what rate and was told that it would be the same as the other writers, $18 an hour, "I made sure you got paid the same, I didn't want you to have to take a cut because you didn't have a degree!" (Like agent had to really argue for me or something.) I told him I wanted $20!!! Afterall, if they can't find a "BS" that can do this job, then certainly I should be paid more! I got a bit of arguement from the guy but he called back a couple of hours later and asked when I could start! I reported the next morning, they gave me my own cubicle. While I was there, I took a couple of trips to their facility in S.C and also helped resolve a problem they had with their down-feed tower mechanism (glass feed through the furnace, in which the glass strand is produced).

A year later I returned to "the Rand" where I was to bring my computer skills to "modernize" their technical publications abilities. That was getting them off thier Wang wordprocessing system, converting all thier old files to modern software, and introducing their writers to the PC. By 1989, everything from writing to illustration, to desktop publishing was done on the PC, saving them substantial time and money. I even devised a program to digitize all of thier old illustrations, eliminating a long row of file cabinets and the dozens of hours each and every week that the clerical staff had to expend maintaining and copying all of those paper files.

Alfred University had a Bachelors of Technology program that spanned two or three years, going a couple of nights each week. It was designed for the person who already had an Associates Degree. I had to take a qualification exam, because I didn't have an "Associates". While I was weak on my math skills, I qualified... but being the suspicious guy I am, I wanted to make sure that after spending the time and the money, would I then get my BT? I was told "NO"... you would still have to go back and get your "Associates". This was really "bull".. and I couldn't see spending the time away from my family, especially like "gnuuser" pointed out... lots of other social kinds of classes.

In the late 80's the division was spun off to joint venture with another company, and things went down hill rapidly after that. In the middle to late 90's this "Certification" stuff came up, mostly pushed by Microsoft. The company (and most companies I think) jumped on that immediately. You couldn't apply for a job, get a promotion, or even dally at the work... UNLESS you were "certified"! Totally a stupid and lazy-a$$ approach if I ever saw one. Here I was, doing the stuff that I was doing, AND had done and was being told that I no longer qualified. At that point in time, I had not only brought the technical publications department into the technological world of the 90's, but had given them things that no other company was doing at the time. All of our main documents were "digital", and capable of being electronically distributed, or setup of remote access (something my "anal" boss didn't have a clue about, and refused to do). I had set up a computer training department for the division, had trained even the corporate secretarial staff, and had heavily advised the IT department as they resisted getting off the "mainframe".

I continued to fight the system though, and to, of course, fight "Systems" who was pushing hard to contain people like me. I designed and implemented an inter-departmental Empoyee Database system. I left the tech pubs department behind (worse boss I ever had), and was brought up to the Product Engineering/Marketing department to do similar things for them. In the first three years there, I completey digitized the API-618 order process (first in the world to actually be able to fill-out that long series of documentation, and have it as actual electronic data.) I also took the entire order history of that division, and "databased" it. The results were that I could accept any kind of query from anywhere in the world, and within a half-hour have an electronic report back to them of our order history. So, if an engineer in Singapore or Moscow or Sidney (for example), sent me an e-mail asking how many machines do we have that can process hydrogen sulfate, and uses 16-inch cylinders, with 1200 hp, and has poppitt valves, (or any other configeration or application), I could tell them how many, where they were at, what companies, what the cylinder, valve, frame or whatever was... and give them all the specs for each and every machine!

And NOW, thanks to a totally enept senior management, I wasn't qualified...because I didn't have a "certification"... or a degree. You know, sometimes it's a good thing to just take the layoff, even if you are only 58. I just decided it wasn't worth the fight and I got the he!! out of that kind of insanity. I just now took a look at the company website, they haven't produced a single machine data sheet since I left. It's still my art, my photography and my design... all copyrighted in 2003! I guess all those degree and certification people are still trying to figure it out.

Bill Lear was a high school dropout but became a self tought inventor. He developed the Lear Business Jet and also worked on developing the first car radio tuning coils and the 8 track tape system.

I also remember reading a book on Mc Donalds where founder Ray Kroc (himself not highly educated) refused to hire anybody with a MBA because he believed that they would not want to get their hands dirty if they had to go to a restaurant and help out.

Bill Lear was a high school dropout but became a self tought inventor. He developed the Lear Business Jet and also worked on developing the first car radio tuning coils and the 8 track tape system.

I also remember reading a book on Mc Donalds where founder Ray Kroc (himself not highly educated) refused to hire anybody with a MBA because he believed that they would not want to get their hands dirty if they had to go to a restaurant and help out.

Yeah, but I read somewhere that he named his daughter "Shanda"

(The word was that she turned out to be a pretty bright kid, who just liked to hang around the house!

I'm not sure if Thomas J Watson (founder of International Time Keeping, which later became IBM) went on to a major college or not. The "Watson Homestead" is just a few miles up the road from us, here in Painted Post. As a matter of fact, he used to work in the villages only hardware store at the time, Hall's Hardware. It used to be right at the village square but was torn down after the 1973 flood. Hall's hardware was rebuilt and I actually bought my big extension ladder from the original owner's grandson. They had the "headboard" from the old staircase up in the new store, where every one of the old time workers used to carve their name... right there was "TJ Watson". (Nothing to do with the topic, but I thought you might find interesting!)

Comment

it only took 10 years for them to bring computers into our work place
they are still using nt and 2000
but myself after all the years of working with micro**** ive switched to linux and do a lot of forensic and recovery work.
one upside of this is that it really cranks up our arrogant turd of an engineer
at work when i fix issues with their systems when he gives up all hope.(he doesnt like me at all)

shooting the s*** is a lot more fun when you use hollow points (much more splatter)

I don't know what it is about computer people (especially the old 'Mainframe' mindset), but nobody seems to like progress.

A big part of my job back in the 70's and 80's was doing illustrated parts catalog work. It's what I 'cut my teeth on' when I started my career. I loved doing the illustration work, but after a few years I found myself burdened with having to do the parts listings too. BORING work and especially so when I went to the Rand in 73'. You'd spend days pulling bills of material from engineering, then rewriting everything into an 80-column parts form, putting the individual parts in proper order of assembly, then you'd send that up to keypunch, and then you get the cards back, and because nobody knew how to sort, I'd have to do that too. Then the Rand keypunch people wouldn't do a "verification", which meant that there would be all kinds of keypunch errors... AND of course, they were just plain stupid too... everywhere in the English-speaking world, a circle with a slash thru it, IS interpreted as a ZERO... and if no slash, then it's and "OH", as in N, M,O, P.... but not at the Rand. All those Zero's with the slash were keyed as "O" and not "0", and vice-versa. What a mess!

So typically a "parts list" for a repair order catalog (for just a single compressor model) would take months and often I would be there late into the evening running the data center machines myself. Well, in 1978 we bought our 12 year-old son an Atari 800 computer (the IBM PC hadn't been invented yet), and I came home one day and found him doing his paper route customer listing on it. GREAT idea, and so I bought a 300-baud acoustic-coupled modem (you know... you put the telephone hand set into the modem's "cups"). My friend in the computer room loaded the machine data to a telephone cue, and I spent four hours downloading that data to my Atari. Then with a day's work, adding sequence numbers to each line item, I could sort and arrange the list as I needed it, and from there phoned it again to our typesetter, where it was printed out. I took what was almost three months of laborious and painstaking work and turned a parts list around in just three days. The reward for all my innovation was to be barred from the computer room! In 82 my Division went south and I hit the streets and started my own freelance operation.

When I returned to the Rand later, it was still the uphill fight. They simply didn't have a clue. One really funny story, was that when they were doing union negotiations in 85, the systems folks were tasked with transcribing the meetings which were off premises. So, they bought an IBM PC (XT with the harddrive). So, their girl typed away all day long and the next morning I got an urgent phone call... they couldn't find anything that was typed. They were using some early version text writer which didn't have an automatic backup, and at the end of the day, they just turned it off... like it was a mainframe terminal. So, first days meeting transcripts were completely lost.... and it was deemed the equipment's fault. Subsequently, the blame was on the PC and other than the two units that we had pirated into the Pubs department, the company didn't get into PC's until almost 1989! It's been a fight ever since... up until I finally departed in 2003 anyway. We made serious gains of couse and eventually almost everybody had a PC on thier desk, but it was always an issue of control and ignorance.